My home is in the beautiful province of British Columbia, Canada. By profession, I am a computer graphic designer and I have always enjoyed form and function and balanced design, either in nature, or in artistic presentation.

I started out in the purebred dog world showing Yorkshire Terriers in 1968. From there I went to Bullmastiffs and thus became very interested in showing and judging. I spent over 30 years under the "Shayla" prefix breeding and showing Bullmastiffs. I bred the first Bullmastiff to win both the Canadian National Specialty and the American National Specialty in the same year. In my time with the Bullmastiffs, I had many BISS.

I published three books on the Bullmastiff breed, the first of which was the first of its kind for 60 years, and the second one was top selling book on Bullmastiffs in the world. My recent new third version completes the trilogy.

I have been involved in breeding and showing Yorkshire Terriers, Bullmastiffs, Belgian Laekenois, Border Terriers and WH Dachshund in North America, plus earth dog work with Border Terriers and WH Dachshund in Australia, U.S.A. and Canada.

I have judged for over 35 years in many countries including Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Malta, England, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, U.S.A. and of course, Canada. I am a Life Member of the Canadian Kennel Club, member of the Canadian Dog Judges Association, plus a licensed conformation judge in Australia, including my qualification as a Master Earth Dog Judge as a member of the Australian National Kennel Council. For a while I lived in Australia and while there was honoured to be made Patron of the Bullmastiff Club of Western Australia In my five years in Australia, I judged many times in all of the Australian States and multiple times in New Zealand.